Dev-iL wrote:I don't disagree with you, it's just that not being able to get into a vehicle inside your own base doesn't sound like a very good solution to me. I think Klonan's solution of disallowing buildings in enemy bases is probably good enough™.

That's not what I am saying, my original comment wasn't clear enough. I was attempting to address the specific case of players on-foot getting blown up in their own base by enemy land mines. If the land mines only affected tanks, then you can spend more time rebuilding the base after an attack (presuming that you don't like to build stuff in a tank here ) because your not going to die after a re-spawn. But simply not building in a controlled area works just as well. The only benefit (to the game) of having the land mines only affect vehicles is promoting on-foot strategies and maybe pushing the use of land mines outwards from a base.

Yeah, would like to see some sort of influence control system, where a teams owns area(s) completely; enemy teams cannot build anything within them only destroy. Maybe you have to stake out the claim somehow and then defend said claim from other teams? The perimeter is where the influence disappears at the edges so that is the natural point for heavy defences.

Dev-iL wrote:...and of course disallowing the picking-up of cars/tanks and their manual crafting

What about locomotives and wagons?
It could be interesting if they will have specialized assembles with output right to rails, but setting up of trains will become nightmare.

You could setup the desired train as a blueprint and have the specialized assembly output that train design. For me that would be a happy additional layer of complexity, but you could make that a toggle option of allowing the player to hand build trains or not. The default would be as it is now.

I think Klonan's solution of disallowing buildings in enemy bases is probably good enough™.

This is definitely a bad idea. Shutting down an entire play style over one single item is a ham fisted solution. It reduces the options that players have to fight each other and disallows cool things like stealing from belts. Problems with mines should be solved by mechanics that deal with mines.

AntiElite has the right idea in giving Radar a "detection" type ability that reveals mines. If you want to stop mine fields all you have to do is build a few radars in your base, which is extremely low cost and low difficulty. Anyone can do it and it shuts down mines pretty hard. Using radars in enemy territory is MUCH more difficult since you either need a power umbilical from home base (difficult to build, easy target) or you need to hijack the opponent's power supply and risk penetrating his defense grid(also high difficulty). Radar detection solves the problem with mines by allowing them to stay effective on defense, while dramatically reducing their ability to work on offense. The best part is that it is a precision solution that doesn't involve major game changes or break down any other styles of play. Tweaking mines becomes a simple matter of tweaking detection.

Don't make it always visible, people will find a way to exploit this.
Instead, for example, make em only visible when you are very close or when you are very close and also not moving.
Or if you have some counter-mine tech or equipped an item that lets you detect mines.

I think Klonan's solution of disallowing buildings in enemy bases is probably good enough™.

This is definitely a bad idea. Shutting down an entire play style over one single item is a ham fisted solution. It reduces the options that players have to fight each other and disallows cool things like stealing from belts. Problems with mines should be solved by mechanics that deal with mines.

AntiElite has the right idea in giving Radar a "detection" type ability that reveals mines. If you want to stop mine fields all you have to do is build a few radars in your base, which is extremely low cost and low difficulty. Anyone can do it and it shuts down mines pretty hard. Using radars in enemy territory is MUCH more difficult since you either need a power umbilical from home base (difficult to build, easy target) or you need to hijack the opponent's power supply and risk penetrating his defense grid(also high difficulty). Radar detection solves the problem with mines by allowing them to stay effective on defense, while dramatically reducing their ability to work on offense. The best part is that it is a precision solution that doesn't involve major game changes or break down any other styles of play. Tweaking mines becomes a simple matter of tweaking detection.

+1
Heavy agreeing!
The current solution to make them visible isn't that fine. Also it can be abused by changing texture or graphics settings.

So using Radar to make them visible in range ist the best choice (in my opinion ).

Landmines should only trigger when tanks run over them. Keep them invisible, maybe make them slower to place, and a bit more expensive, but otherwise, allow players and maybe cars to run over them without triggering them.

A lot of people on board with radar detecting mines, but has anyone thought about how this could be abused? Does no one think it would be a problem for an attacker to bring a radar with them to detect land mines before an attack? Either dragging power with them to the enemy base with big electric poles or setting up a mini solar energy outpost to provide power to their radar. Maybe even finding unguarded enemy power close by they can plop a radar next to (which I think is an ok mechanic, electricity does not discriminate).

I think if land mines are going to be a thing, there should be a specific item you must produce to counter them. Something that you must produce in mass so that the production of land mines vs land mine defense is balanced. I'm thinking something like "Rubber Bullets" that can be fired indiscriminately and they won't hurt other players or structures (or maybe very low damage) but will detonate land mines on contact.

Does no one think it would be a problem for an attacker to bring a radar with them to detect land mines before an attack?

Dragging in power from home base is very high risk. A defender only needs to break that line to end the radar threat. Setting up a mini outpost is also risky. It slows down the attack, gives a juicy target to attack, and gives the defender more time to respond.

Once a player reveals a mine he can shoot them or grenade them to clear the threat.

I think detection will introduce a meta where players put mines where they aren't easily anticipated. Mines on defense and offense are obvious targets, but random mines between bases are slow to find and slow to sweep. You can't charge blindly across the map when there's the potential of getting popped out of nowhere. Such a thing does favor the first attacker who mines random spots on the field, but it also favors defenders because random mines increase the difficulty of charging an enemy base.

In real life mines are generally not seen by both sides. Dense minefields are marked to be seen by anyone and do serve a purpose of simply delaying attacker passing this point.
So following this logic detecting mines should be available and radars are perfect tools for it. However it might be good to increase mine HP to make it harder to clean them.
And some specialized tool like "Demining Bulldozer" can be introduced. Such vehicle can have no weapons but would be nearly invulnerable to mine explosions so it would disarm them by driving over the minefield.

However mines generally have no means of FoF detection so they would explode on friendly targets. This is their nature but they create an effective way to prevent enemies from getting to your base from specific direction.

UnifiedSleepers wrote:There are some interesting real world de-mining devices out there. http://minekafon.org

That device is extremely unreliable for any mine-cleaning task.

There are devices, that are better suited for the job and currently in use in armies around the world:Rollers, Flails or even Plows can be attached to tanks or trucks for clearing a path or entire fields.
For a less "mundane" experience, there is the Python Minefield Breaching System or the less heavy APOBS.
When there is enough time, explosive-sniffing dogs and rats (seriously) are used to find the mines, that remain after using the other tools.
There also exist mine-resistant trucks.

Sorry for the late post, just catching up with the factorio news after working away for a few weeks.
In the Graphics developer room, on the middle desk, what keyboard is that? Looks like something custom and mechanical